The past few weeks have been a trying time to be an MMA fan, with random drug tests nailing Anderson Silva (smh), Hector Lombard (could have seen it coming), and Jon Fitch (wah?!) for various types of performance enhancers. MMA has always had something of a drug problem, but 2015 has brought that issue to the forefront with a resounding injection to the buttocks. Worse yet, the UFC’s decision to recently abandon their out-of-competition drug testing program indicates that the sport’s steroid epidemic will only get worse before it gets better.

The question now becomes: Where do we go from here? Well, I’ve talked it over with my highly-dedicated blogging team of less than two people, and the best thing we could think of was to lob a bunch of biased and completely ungrounded accusations at the select group of MMA fighters who’ve yet to test positive for anabolic steroids. F*ck yeah, internet writing!

So without further adieu, join us as we take a look ahead at the hulked-out future of mixed martial arts, and more specifically, which of its fighters will most likely be popped for PED’s.

Mixed martial arts has always felt like a kind of fighting utopia. A permanent dream state for lovers of fight sports that occasionally seems almost too good to be true. In a sanitised world, it is the closest and most acceptable iteration of the “no holds barred” concept of combat all fight purists have wet dreams about. Two elite combatants. One locked cage. Very few rules. The best fighter wins, right?

Oh wait, no. We’re back in the land of fantasy again. In fact, with the cold hindsight of UFC 183 and many other recent revelations that are presently clouding the MMA horizon, we’re no longer dreaming or fantasising. We’re standing in a stark reality. And the reality is that MMA – or more specifically, MMA’s standard-bearer and aggressively-insistent market leader, the UFC – is beginning to resemble a bit of a circus.

Does it say more about the UFC or its athletes that classy, universally-respected guys like Georges St. Pierre and Brian Stann only feel comfortable discussing their gripes with the organization’s drug-testing policies after they have stepped away from the sport? It’s hard to say for sure, but in any case, Stann has followed suit with GSP, first lamenting the sport’s drug issues as a “major part” of why he retired earlier this month before further explaining himself during an appearance on The MMA Houryesterday.

While Stann refused to name names, he was quick to admit that MMA’s lackadaisical drug-testing has made it easy for many a fighter to cycle on and off PED’s over the years — a trend that will continue to plague the sport until a change is made:

I think the time when you retire coming off a loss and then you say that, what I didn’t want to do was discredit any of my former opponents. You know, specifically seeing that Wanderlei (Silva) was my last fight, I didn’t want to come off like, ‘Hey, I’m making excuses. The only people that beat me were people on drugs.’ I don’t know any of that for a certainty. There’s one time when I fought a guy on TRT when it was allowed, and that’s the only time that I could say substantially somebody was taking something. But, it was a factor.

I’m a clean fighter. I’m 33 years old, and I have seen, in my own training, and in talking and knowing guys in the inner circle, I’ve known what guys are not on, and when they cycle on it. You can feel the difference in the gym and what big a difference it makes, and I do think there are a number of guys who are using just because the testing currently by our athletic commissions is inadequate.

As a longtime fan of German spin-kicker/liver-destroyer Dennis Siver, I was more upset than most to learn that he had failed his UFC 168 drug test for a testicle-preserving banned substance often used in post-steroid cycles. Shocked no, because just look at the dude, but upset nonetheless. And being that we are currently living in the era of shirked responsibility, Siver has now come forth to place the blame on his nutritionist, while simultaneously claiming that his positive test is no one’s fault but his own.

Today I would like to issue a public statement and give my fans and supporters the opportunity to form their own opinion on how the alleged doping allegations against me came about.

Last fall, my coach Niko Sulenta was diagnosed with severe cancer, which lead to me being on my own during the preparations for a UFC fight for the first time, without me being able to draw on his longstanding care and advice. Niko has always been essential to my weight reduction.

So prior to UFC 168 I had to hire an external personal trainer and nutritionist to support me with making weight. The nutritionist recommended me a new diet method from the US, which had been successfully used by the stars.

The reason we say all this is because in a recent interview with Tatame, the normally reserved featherweight kingpin not only came out in support of TRT and stated that he plans on using it in the future, but insinuated that beloved MMA icon Randy “The Natural” Couture was probably on steroids at one point or another during his career.

I don’t see the problem with using TRT. Everybody uses [steroids], from the champion to the newcomer. I believe we [from Nova Uniao] are the only ones that don’t do that, because Andre (Pederneiras) was always against steroids. I think it’s wrong to criticize someone who came forward and said they take TRT.

The man who turned the Biogenesis clinic from a quiet investigation in Miami into a national scandal says there are at least a dozen more athletes whose names haven’t been exposed and that they come from across the sports world.

Porter Fischer, the former Biogenesis of Miami clinic employee who turned boxes of documents over to the Miami New Times last year, declined to name the athletes. But in his first television interview, Fischer told “Outside the Lines” that numerous sports had at least one athlete who received performance-enhancing drugs from clinic founder Tony Bosch.

“This isn’t a 2013 thing or a 2012 thing; some of these people have been on the books since 2009,” Fischer said.

Fischer said he and associates have identified athletes from the NBA, NCAA, professional boxing, tennis and MMA, in addition to other professional baseball players who have not yet been identified. As far as he knows, Fischer said, Bosch had no clients from the NFL or NHL…

And as for Bonnar? Well, the normally outspoken light heavyweight has been similarly silent — likely due in part to the birth of his son — since exiting the UFC on such terrible terms. Until now, that is.

For the first time since the fight itself, Bonnar addressed the factors that led him to get popped for Drostanolone following UFC 153 during an interview on The MMA Hour(Author’s note: WHAT ABOUT US, STEPHAN?). Although Stephan took full responsibility for his actions, his reasoning for why he fell back on the juice yet again didn’t exactly absolve him of all guilt (via MMAFighting):

…after being shelved for months and being advised to retire by UFC president Dana White, he had given up hope of closing out his career with a major fight…But then, out of the blue, the semi-retired fighter got the phone call he never thought was coming. After about 10 months without a fight, he was being asked to compete against the the sport’s pound-for-pound king, Anderson Silva.

Believe it or not, there are some therapeutic uses to some of the banned substances,” he said. “Bottom line, I wanted to get my strength back. I was very weak. My body didn’t feel good, my joints didn’t feel good. That was my goal.

As you surely recall, Belfort was granted a TUE for TRT prior to his UFC on FX 7 victory over Michael Bisping. Although most of us were willing to give “The Phenom” a pass for that event because he was able to shut up Michael Bisping for a minute or two, it looks like NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer will not be so lenient should Belfort and past dopers like him fight in Nevada any time soon:

I don’t see Vitor Belfort getting a TRT exemption from us. I really don’t and I feel kind of bad for him in some ways because if he has learned from his mistakes and now he’s trying to do it the right way and his levels are low with the treatment good for him and I hope he is doing that.